In spring 2015, the municipal transport company PKM in the southern Polish city of Jaworzno, 55 kilometres from Krakow, put Poland’s first battery-electric bus into operation with its 308 coach. It is a Solaris Urbino 12 electric and is now ten years old. PKM Jaworzno now has 49 electric buses of various sizes from Solaris. The fleet also includes the shorter Urbino 8.9 electric and the articulated Urbino 18 electric.
As a company that started using battery-electric buses at an early stage, PKM relied on recharging the vehicles in the network via the bus’s charging mast and pantograph. And although the storage capacity of the batteries and therefore the range of the buses has increased significantly in the 10 years since then, the charging system that Jaworzno had to decide on back then has proven its worth.
PKM is proud to be a pioneer in battery electric buses in Poland.
At the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the electric buses in Jaworzno, Solaris boss Javier Iriarte said that ten years ago, this town was the catalyst for change in Polish public transport. And Zbigniew Nosal, Managing Director of PKM, added: ‘That was a step in the right direction.’
PKM now provides 80% of its services with electric buses. But they are not satisfied with that. At the ceremony, the purchase agreement was signed for seven more Urbino 12 electric buses, which are due to be delivered in the first half of 2026. They will increase the proportion of electric buses in the fleet to 85%. Their batteries will have a capacity of 400 kWh. The vehicles will be equipped with the latest driver assistance systems and air conditioning systems and will offer their passengers USB plugs.
The now ten-year-old 308 car, with which everything began in 2015, has now ‘wound down’ 700,000 kilometres. 70,000 kilometres a year: that’s above average – on average, a bus is expected to cover around 60,000 kilometres a year.
We last reported on Jaworzno here:
